


The Advancement of Learning

by Mosca



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Queer Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 20:23:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4493460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-five things Galina knows about her students.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Advancement of Learning

**Author's Note:**

> In the summer of 2008, Stéphane and Johnny were both training with Galina Zmievskaya in New Jersey. I wrote this story and posted it to my Livejournal in July 2008, when it was unclear how long that arrangement would last. This is also the time period when Tanith Belbin was dating Evan Lysacek, and she and Johnny weren't getting along as a result.
> 
> This fic contains: a narrator and another main character whose first languages are not English, references to past Johnny/Brian Joubert, a nonsexual friendship between Johnny and Stéphane that's more important than the romantic pairing, discussion of the sexual/emotional life of a middle-aged lady, people saying catty things about Valentina Marchei, and the only reason to get off the New Jersey Turnpike at Exit 7.
> 
> Thanks to Sandyk for the beta and to Thistle for audiencing. The title is from a Francis Bacon essay.

1\. 

Galina had two of them now, her boys. Not hers, and it was a bad idea to start thinking of them as such, when at any time they could choose a new coach. They had made Galina twice the refuge of young men who had fired their longtime coaches, young men with notoriously difficult dispositions, young men known for making decisions with their hearts. They had chosen her because she didn't tolerate such behavior from her students. Last year, she had to tell Johnny, "You will not sleep late, and you will not cheat on your diet, and you will not go to New York on weeknights to get drunk and sleep with someone you just met. You will go to bed early, and then you will come here and skate, and then you will go home and go to bed early again." He listened. The wild ones listened best because they knew the price of doing otherwise.

2\. 

"Are you doing anything this weekend?" Johnny said.

"I'm going to unpack," Stéphane said.

"You haven't seen New York yet," Johnny said. "I could take you."

"I saw the Statue of Liberty. I did that kind of thing. Tomorrow I need to find my shoes," Stéphane said.

"We could go _out_ ," Johnny said.

"I hate going out," Stéphane said. "I hate bars, gay bars, they're just full of..."

Johnny laughed. "Gay men. You're right. We all suck."

"And I have no shoes," Stéphane said.

3\. 

Galina didn't mean to eavesdrop, but she often overheard bits of their conversations. They sat together during their breaks, sipping black coffee. Sometimes they ignored each other, and sometimes they talked. They were friends, and they seemed to enjoy seeing each other so often. It was brave of them, this friendship.

4\. 

"Where's Bordentown?" Stéphane said.

"Near Trenton," Johnny said. "Halfway between here and Philadelphia."

"What's in Bordentown?"

"Motels."

5\. 

Old women liked gossip. Everyone liked gossip, but old women with settled lives wanted news of the young. Galina received phone calls from old rivals and acquaintances. They wanted to know how her new student was adjusting to his new home and his new training schedule. They wanted to know if her boys were mentally stable, if Stéphane had a reliable triple axel, if Johnny was landing his quad. Was it more like training girls, the way both of them acted? But more, they wanted to know why her, why both of them. "They are my pupils," she said. "They have come to me to improve their skating." 

6\. 

Stéphane was reading a celebrity magazine in English and singing to himself in French. Galina guessed it couldn't be more difficult than a quadruple toe loop.

7\. 

"Oh, I've been _there_ ," Johnny said. "In Simsbury, the entire time, like bunny rabbits. If it hadn't been for me, he might have switched coaches and stayed there. But hey, at least our moms stayed friends."

"Your moms?" Stéphane said.

"Yeah, his mom _loves_ me," Johnny said. "I think she wishes he'd dump Valentina and marry me. Not that I'm asking. I have fucking. Traded. Up."

"He'll never marry Valentina," Stéphane said. "Soon he'll remember she doesn't, you know, have a penis, and then he'll find a person who has one and she'll slap his face."

"Who knows? Maybe they have an arrangement. Maybe she's forgiving."

"She's a boring girl," Stéphane said. "Nice, you know, but not much..." He tapped the side of his head. "She'll never be the star of that couple. That is what he likes."

8\. 

When they took their breaks at different times, or they weren't feeling talkative, Galina saw most clearly the differences between them. Stéphane closed his eyes and listened to music, drummed on the side of his chair, sometimes sang loudly, as if he were alone. Johnny read Russian novels, the classics, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, occasionally frowning and flipping through his dictionary. He'd write the translation in the margin and proceed with the same smile of accomplishment she saw when he landed his jumps cleanly. It was right that Stéphane was primarily Viktor's student, and Johnny was primarily hers.

9\. 

Johnny was on the phone. "Well, they can go, they just can't go with -- Yeah, I know they want to go. Straight girls _love_ the pride parade. . . No, I know. I know it's unfair to you. . . I will. I will. Just - You know what? I'll just go with Paris and Stéphane, it'll be easier that way, and we'll hook up the week after. . . No, I miss you, I want to see you, but. . . Even if she calls, it's not going to be all hunky dory by then. . . Okay, have her call me, that's fine. I want to talk to her, and it's not just for you, it's, I know her, I like her, I don't want things to be like this, but she has to, you know, I am not the bad guy here and. . . I'm sorry, okay, I'm putting you in the middle. . . Listen, I will see you in a week and a half, and then we'll. . . Yeah, that too. . . Yeah, have a good practice, I'll talk to you tonight, my coach is giving me that look. . . Yeah, seriously, bye."

10\. 

Johnny and Stéphane came to the rink on Monday morning angry and weary. Not angry at each other, and not physically tired. Galina hadn't noticed before that they usually arrived together. Wasn't Stéphane staying with Viktor and Nina anymore? Galina thought she'd have been told.

Johnny explained, "Stéphane doesn't have a car yet, so I've been giving him a ride." His spirits rose somewhat after he shared that, like he had proven something to himself that he hadn't been sure of before.

11.

Natalia Vladimirovna called to ask, "Your student, is he a good boy, is he honest?" Galina didn't know the answer because she didn't know the context of the question. Johnny was good at heart but not in every action. He lied, but not maliciously. 

It seemed that Natalia Vladimirovna heard Galina's silence. "Normally, I don't pry into the lives of my students," Natalia Vladimirovna said. "They are adults, of course, I am their coach and not their mother. But Tanith, the girl, came in yesterday talking on her cell phone, like they all do now, and my God, that girl talks so fast I'm lucky to understand every fifth word, but that fifth word was 'Ben's boyfriend.' She looked at me like she knew I'd heard."

 _Boyfriend_ : what a terrible word. Did it describe any man well? Galina said, "It wasn't how they wanted you to find out."

"They didn't want me to find out," Natalia Vladimirovna said. "When they came to skate with me, he had a girlfriend, not married, you know, but living together, a marriage without a ring. I knew that this girlfriend hadn't traveled with him, but that was all."

"So how do you know?" Galina said. "How do you know it's my student and not some other boy?"

"Tanith is a conscientious girl," Natalia Vladimirovna said. "She apologized that I'd overheard, and she said, 'I thought you might as well know,' and she explained. I think she's unhappy about the situation, and she wants me to interfere."

"That's not your responsibility," Galina said.

"I know," Natalia Vladimirovna said.

"You shouldn't worry," Galina said. "Johnny is bright and honest. He's a good man."

12\. 

Johnny ran out onto the pavement as a thunderstorm split the late-morning sky. "I am a ray of sunshine!" he shouted. "Listen up, New Jersey, _I am a fucking ray of fucking sunshine and I make rainbows wherever I go._ " He spun around on his toe and finished his turn facing Galina. He said, "Sorry, are there kids around? Sorry."

13\. 

"You watch TMZ?" Johnny was saying. "Why do you watch that? It's, like, the worst thing on TV. It might be the worst thing in the universe."

"I like celebrities," Stéphane said. "And it helps my English."

"It's not helping your English. It's killing your brain. Galina, tell him he can't watch TMZ anymore."

"I don't know what is TMZ," Galina said. "I don't involve in this."

"You see?" Stéphane said. "It's at six o'clock, it has no calories, it's allowed."

"Read a book," Johnny said.

"Count von A-Hole isn't in a book," Stéphane said.

"Read a book," Galina said.

14\. 

From the other old women, she found out about Stéphane. He had planned to leave his coach almost two years earlier, but he had fallen in love and been unwilling to leave Europe. Of course, with that kind of passion and such high expectations, the romance had crumbled, and it had done Stéphane's athleticism no good at all. He'd shaved his head. He was taking antidepressants. He'd come to New Jersey to escape, to hide.

15\. 

"We did _too_ kiss once," Johnny said.

"I don't remember," said Stéphane.

"You were drunk. I was drunk. It was one of those drunk nights."

"Was I good?" Stéphane said.

"I don't know. I was drunk. I would have kissed anything."

It disappointed Galina that when she was asked if they were lovers, she could not pull this conversation out of her pocket and settle the matter.

16\. 

"Can I have the day off on Saturday?" Johnny asked. He asked in English, which meant it was important and he was uncertain. He didn't want to be misunderstood; he was so afraid of that. "I. . . I need to go to Philadelphia. I mean, I know I need to skate, too, and if - I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked, never mind, I'll be here, I'll skate."

"You will be here early Monday, not too tired?" Galina said.

"Of course."

"Enjoy your trip," Galina said.

17\. 

Galina wondered what would happen if she followed Johnny's example and took a secret lover. There were always possibilities: men with a divorced look in their eyes would smile at her at the supermarket or the dentist's waiting room. She guessed at their questions. Was she single, was she kind? She imagined names and jobs for them, made up intricate stories about their ex-wives but never spoke to them.

It would not have been difficult. Bodies had strong memories. But who would care? Nobody gossiped about old women. It seemed like too much trouble, so little notoriety for a pleasure she hardly missed.

18\. 

Stéphane grinned and hummed as he laced up his skates. 

"That's the last time I'm driving all the way to Queens to come and get you," Johnny said.

19\. 

Johnny went to the Cayman Islands with his brother for his birthday. "No tattoos, no dangerous sports," Galina felt it necessary to scold. She didn't fear that he would engage in such activities, but he seemed to trust her more when she took the time to lecture him. 

He sent her an e-mail with photos of the sunset. _Today I jumped off a mountain into the water. Just kidding! We rented jet skis, though. I hope that isn't too dangerous._ He wrote it in Russian, except for "jet skis," and he'd taken the time to make the grammar perfect.

20\. 

Stéphane was saying to Johnny, "This is the problem. At our age, if we've already had a great love and lost it, we are so young, we don't know what love is. If we've never been in love, we're so old, we have fallen behind. The only option is to love someone, to marry and stay forever, and we are not all so, so, so lucky."

21\. 

Johnny came back to New Jersey on Monday, and the boyfriend came to watch Johnny practice on Tuesday. The boyfriend had paid for ice time during the early morning ice dance session, so Johnny convinced the rink manager that it was okay to let him stand by the boards. He was a distraction, but it was good for Johnny to practice emotional control. This was the rationale that Galina used to keep herself from throwing a fit.

Johnny was showing off. He was putting flourishes at the end of his jumps and breaking into spread eagles that sapped his energy and strained his back. "Now that you've exhausted yourself playing games," Galina said, "triple axel-triple toe, one lap of clean back crossovers, one more triple axel."

She could tell that he wanted to make a rude face. She didn't know why: he loved to jump and especially to do the hardest jumps well. But if a coach asked for something, that thing became work.

He did his triple axel combination cleanly, although Galina would have liked more height in the air. The curve of his crossovers was all wrong, and she was convinced he was in for a hard fall until he picked back with his right foot and launched a quadruple toe loop. And a triple toe loop. And a gilded lily of a double toe loop, which he landed on two feet.

The boyfriend pumped his fist in the air. Galina would have yelled at Johnny for ignoring her instructions, but those jumps had not been for her.

22\. 

"We were lying in my bed, and he put his face really close to mine. You know -" Johnny demonstrated comically, making Stéphane jump backwards. "And he says, 'you know what would be really hot?' And I'm all ready to, like, guess, but he's like, 'If we go to bed and _don't set the alarm._ ' No, no, the really funny part is, we were both up at, like, seven. No, actually? There's more, because then we went to the diner on Riverside and on the way we were like, pancakes and bacon, bacon pancakes with bacon syrup, but we sit down to order and get, like, fruit and yogurt. We shared a side of bacon and did that _Lady and the Tramp_ thing. With the bacon. Oh my God, it was better than the sex."

23\. 

Stéphane was leaning against the wall next to the drinking fountain outside the restrooms, hanging up his cell phone and wiping tears from underneath his eyes. The first time he had cried in practice, Galina had rushed onto the ice, fearing that he'd injured himself seriously. But no, only a bruised ego. He cried almost daily, and Galina was learning not to let it affect her. She decided not to ask him what was wrong, but she walked casually toward the ladies' room. "I'm trying to. . . to make peace," he explains, gesturing through the vocabulary gaps. "I'm Swiss, it's my nature, I think. But you know, they have - _we_ have too, too much history."

Galina offered a hug, and Stéphane accepted it. She was tempted to ask which friendship had hit the rocks this time, but it wasn't her job to collect gossip. 

24\. 

Both of Galina's boys were going to Japan again in August. Of course, in the middle of studying new competitive choreography, they had each separately decided that their exhibition programs were old and boring. There was an American phrase that Galina liked without feeling sure she was using it correctly: _blowing off steam._ She feared they would blow too much steam and have none left for their serious studies.

They were skating together, which Galina distrusted. They kept stopping in the middle of the ice to compare arm positions or edges. When Stephane physically corrected Johnny's spinning posture, Galina figured them out. They were choreographing each other.

25\. 

Johnny and Stéphane both had signs on their lockers: "ISU Exploratory Commission for the Prevention of VPL." Viktor asked Galina if she knew what "VPL" stood for. All Viktor had gotten out of Stéphane was laughter and blushing.

So Galina asked Johnny, who was not so easily mortified. "You know when men's costumes are too tight in here?" He circled his hand below his waist. "And you can see way too much?"

"I think I'll join this commission," Galina said.

"They'll be pleased to have someone of your stature," Johnny said.


End file.
